New Chinese Medicine and Culture journal issue explores traditional Chinese medicine across history and borders

A new issue explores the evolution of traditional Chinese medicine through texts, practice, empire, and global cross-cultural exchange

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The March 2026 issue of Chinese Medicine and Culture explores how Chinese medicine has been shaped by theory, practice, regional traditions, and global exchange.

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The latest issue of Chinese Medicine and Culture offers a broad look at how TCM has been formed, interpreted, and transmitted over time. Published as Volume 9, Issue 1 in March 2026, the quarterly journal positions itself as an interdisciplinary forum linking medical science, history, culture, and heritage research. That mission is clearly reflected in this issue, which moves across early Chinese thought, imperial material culture, regional schools of medicine, and the international circulation of medical ideas.

One of the feature articles, “Overarching Three Yin-Three Yang: Evolution of the Basics,” revisits a foundational concept in TCM: the three yin–three yang (三阴三阳) system. Rather than treating it as a fixed doctrine, the paper argues that it emerged gradually from earlier yin–yang (阴阳) cosmology, body movement practices, manual therapies, and early meridian observations. Drawing on classical texts and excavated figurines, the study suggests that this framework developed step by step as ancient thinkers sought to align the human body with the wider cosmos.

A second feature article examines the concept of Du (毒), often translated as “toxicity” or “poison”. The study shows that its meaning varies depending on clinical context, referring to potency, Pian Xing (偏性 imbalanced qualities of materia medica), or harm. It highlights that safety in TCM depends not only on the substance itself, but also on dosage, preparation, and the patient’s condition.

An original article on Shang oracle-bone medical inscriptions traces early ideas about disease causation, suggesting that etiological thinking has much deeper roots than later formal medical canons alone might indicate. It reinforces the view that TCM is not a static body of knowledge, but a long intellectual tradition shaped through continuous reinterpretation.

The issue also explores how medicine has functioned within political and social systems. In “Imperial Power and Medicine: Ingot and Its Equipment Made by Qing Palace during Yongzheng Period,” researchers examine medicinal ingots produced during the Yongzheng period of the Qing dynasty. Using archival records and museum materials, the study shows that these objects were not merely therapeutic items, but also instruments of court ritual and symbols of authority. It suggests that medicine in the Qing court helped regulate not only health, but also hierarchy and political order.

Other contributions highlight the diversity of medical thought and practice. One paper discusses the classical idea of treating lung disease through the large intestine, illustrating the continued relevance of organ interconnections in TCM theory. Another traces the development of Joseon Korea’s indigenous Onyeokhak through Sino-Korean exchange, emphasising how state-driven and pragmatic approaches shaped medical practice.

A comparative study of low back pain in TCM and Thai medicine places different Asian traditions in dialogue around shared clinical challenges. Similarly, a review on the transmission of Chinese medicine in France highlights how medical knowledge evolves as it moves across cultural contexts.

Regional perspectives are also explored. One article examines the Longsha medical school, showing how geography, ecology, local resources, and population characteristics shaped a distinct medical lineage in Jiangsu and beyond. Another review of Mu Tong fruit (木通果实) demonstrates how the names, identities, and attributed effects of a medicinal substance have shifted over time, revealing the layered and often contested nature of materia medica classification.

Overall, this issue presents TCM as a complex and evolving knowledge system shaped by archaeology, language, clinical reasoning, empire, regional identity, and international exchange. It highlights that understanding Chinese medicine today requires recognising how it has continually been reinterpreted and remade.

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Reference

DOI: https://journals.lww.com/CMC/pages/default.aspx

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Journal

Chinese Medicine and Culture

Article Title

Chinese Medicine and Culture Volume 9, Issue 1, March 2026

Exaggeration Of Real Ocean Climate Risks To Ireland Disrupts Future Planning

Cliffs of Moher in Ireland

April 11, 2026
By Eurasia Review


The real climate risks to Ireland from changes to the Atlantic currents that sustain our mild climate are obscured by exaggerated claims in media headlines and movies.

That’s according to Dr Gerard McCarthy, a Maynooth University (MU) oceanographer at the Irish Climate Analysis and Research UnitS (ICARUS) in the Department of Geography, who has led a new article for Nature Climate Change.

The latest paper is a retrospective on a landmark 2015 study led by Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, which identified long-term Atlantic cooling as a sign that the Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC) was weakening.

“The extreme climate collapse scenarios depicted in the Hollywood film, The Day After Tomorrow, and even in headlines of reputable mainstream media are often not grounded in scientific reality, but the genuine risks for Ireland are still significant and require proper planning,” said Dr McCarthy.

“It has happened that a new paper comes out, you get headlines saying the AMOC is going to collapse in the next few years. What we need to do is bring together a broader scientific voice to properly assess all the existing AMOC research literature, rather than having these seesawing headlines that concern and confuse our policymakers,” said Dr McCarthy.


Dr McCarthy added, “the study led by Stefan Rahmstorf—one of the most influential studies of AMOC—used changes in sea surface temperature records stretching back over a century to build its case. The records show that the stretch of ocean lying between Ireland and Canada is the only region on Earth that has systematically cooled while almost everywhere else warmed.”

This retrospective paper – co-authored by Professor Hans-Otto Pörtner of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven – considered the questions raised by the Rahmstorf paper and highlighted the need for a clearer scientific consensus, setting the stage for a larger international research project called the AMOC in Focus assessment report, which Dr McCarthy is co-leading and is sponsored by JPI Ocean and JPI Climate.

This project is a 60-scientist, 14-country initiative aimed at producing authoritative, usable guidance for policymakers in Europe and around the world.

Regarding what AMOC changes mean for Ireland’s future, Dr McCarthy said it’s likely we will see relative cooling in the Atlantic.

“Cooling is not really what I’m worried about. What concerns me is changes in precipitation patterns and storminess. A weakening AMOC tightens the temperature gradient that fuels Atlantic storms, like a taut elastic band – and then more of those storms get catapulted towards Ireland. Ireland sits right at the end of this system. We are hugely dependent on the heat it transports, so we need a clear consensus voice, grounded in science, to plan properly,” said Dr McCarthy.

Dr McCarthy is an expert on AMOC; the system of ocean currents, sometimes known as the Gulf Stream System, that is critical to Ireland’s temperate climate, despite it being at a similar latitude to southern Alaska.

He also co-chairs the ongoing AMOC in Focus assessment, which brings together leading scientists from across Europe, Canada, and the USA to assess the likelihood and risks of a potential disruption to the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation system and its associated implications for climate, ecosystems, people, and the economy.

Exaggeration of real ocean climate risks to ireland disrupts future planning, says Maynooth University oceanographer

The real climate risks to Ireland from changes to the Atlantic currents that sustain our mild climate are obscured by exaggerated claims in media headlines and movies.

Maynooth University

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Dr Gerard McCarthy, oceanographer at the Irish Climate Analysis and Research UnitS (ICARUS) in the Department of Geography, Maynooth University

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Credit: Maynooth University

The real climate risks to Ireland from changes to the Atlantic currents that sustain our mild climate are obscured by exaggerated claims in media headlines and movies.

That’s according to Dr Gerard McCarthy, a Maynooth University (MU) oceanographer at the Irish Climate Analysis and Research UnitS (ICARUS) in the Department of Geography, who has led a new article for Nature Climate Change.

The latest paper is a retrospective on a landmark 2015 study led by Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, which identified long-term Atlantic cooling as a sign that the Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC) was weakening.

“The extreme climate collapse scenarios depicted in the Hollywood film, The Day After Tomorrow, and even in headlines of reputable mainstream media are often not grounded in scientific reality, but the genuine risks for Ireland are still significant and require proper planning,” said Dr McCarthy.

“It has happened that a new paper comes out, you get headlines saying the AMOC is going to collapse in the next few years. What we need to do is bring together a broader scientific voice to properly assess all the existing AMOC research literature, rather than having these seesawing headlines that concern and confuse our policymakers,” said Dr McCarthy.  

Dr McCarthy added, “the study led by Stefan Rahmstorf—one of the most influential studies of AMOC—used changes in sea surface temperature records stretching back over a century to build its case. The records show that the stretch of ocean lying between Ireland and Canada is the only region on Earth that has systematically cooled while almost everywhere else warmed.”

This retrospective paper - co-authored by Professor Hans-Otto Pörtner of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven – considered the questions raised by the Rahmstorf paper and highlighted the need for a clearer scientific consensus, setting the stage for a larger international research project called the AMOC in Focus assessment report, which Dr McCarthy is co-leading and is sponsored by JPI Ocean and JPI Climate.

This project is a 60-scientist, 14-country initiative aimed at producing authoritative, usable guidance for policymakers in Europe and around the world.

Regarding what AMOC changes mean for Ireland’s future, Dr McCarthy said it’s likely we will see relative cooling in the Atlantic.

“Cooling is not really what I’m worried about. What concerns me is changes in precipitation patterns and storminess. A weakening AMOC tightens the temperature gradient that fuels Atlantic storms, like a taut elastic band – and then more of those storms get catapulted towards Ireland. Ireland sits right at the end of this system. We are hugely dependent on the heat it transports, so we need a clear consensus voice, grounded in science, to plan properly,” said Dr McCarthy.

Dr McCarthy is an expert on AMOC; the system of ocean currents, sometimes known as the Gulf Stream System, that is critical to Ireland’s temperate climate, despite it being at a similar latitude to southern Alaska.

He also co-chairs the ongoing AMOC in Focus assessment, which brings together leading scientists from across Europe, Canada, and the USA to assess the likelihood and risks of a potential disruption to the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation system and its associated implications for climate, ecosystems, people, and the economy.

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Journal

Nature

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Atlantic exceptionalism in the twentieth century

Article Publication Date

10-Apr-2026

 

NIH researchers discover pain-relieving drug with minimal addictive properties

Positive safety profile of novel drug compound is surprise for class of synthetic opioids shelved years ago

NIH/Office of the Director

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified a novel, highly potent opioid that shows potential as a therapy for both pain and opioid use disorder. In a study published in Nature, the team observed the new drug’s effect in laboratory animals. They showed that it has high pain-relieving effects without causing respiratory depression, tolerance or other indicators of potential for addiction in humans.

 

“Opioid pain medications are essential for medical purposes, but can lead to addiction and overdose,” said Nora D. Volkow, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). “Developing a highly effective pain medication without these drawbacks would have enormous public health benefits.”

 

The team investigated formulations of an understudied class of synthetic opioid compounds, known as nitazenes. Nitazenes selectively engage mu-opioid receptors, primary targets for opioid drugs in the brain and peripheral nervous system. However, nitazenes had been shelved in the 1950s due to their excessive potency. The scientific team revisited this class of compounds with a focus on harnessing their selectivity for the mu opioid receptor and engineering new nitazenes with a safer pharmacological profile.

 

“Our goal was to study the profile, or pharmacology, of these drugs,” said Michael Michaelides, Ph.D., senior author and NIDA investigator. “We wanted to decrease the potency and create a potential therapeutic. What we discovered exceeded our expectations.”

 

The team focused initially on a chemical formulation called FNZ that could be administered to rats and tagged with a radioisotope for positron emission tomography (PET). PET imaging enables tracking of the drug in real time throughout the rat brain. The team discovered that FNZ entered the brain only briefly, for approximately five to 10 minutes. Yet pain relief, known as analgesia, persisted for at least two hours. Knowing that nitazenes can have active metabolites, or by-products, the team investigated whether an FNZ metabolite might be responsible for the prolonged effect. That investigation revealed DFNZ, another opioid dubbed a “superagonist” for its extremely high efficacy at the mu opioid receptor.

 

Whereas FNZ carries serious risks, including depressed breathing and high potential for addiction, DFNZ appears to sidestep these liabilities.

 

At preclinical therapeutic doses, DFNZ produced a moderate and sustained increase in brain oxygen rather than depressing respiration. Repeated doses of the drug did not result in tolerance, drug dependency, or meaningful withdrawal effects. Among 14 classic opioid withdrawal symptoms, the researchers only observed irritability, as measured by vocalization, when handling DFNZ-treated rats.

 

To test the drug’s rewarding effects, an important component of their addictive potential, the team studied its effects in rats who had been trained to press a lever for a dose of the pain-relieving drug. They found that animals readily self-administered DFNZ, indicating that it does produce some rewarding effect. However, when the drug was replaced with saline, animals stopped the drug-seeking behavior. The immediate behavior change is in contrast with what researchers see with other opioids such as heroin, morphine, and fentanyl. In those cases, animals typically persist in seeking the drug even after it is removed.

 

Further investigation revealed a likely neurochemical explanation. While DFNZ increases slow-acting dopamine release in the brain's reward circuitry, it does not trigger the rapid dopamine bursts associated with the formation of strong drug-cue associations, the conditioned responses that drive craving and relapse in addiction.

 

“DFNZ has an unprecedented pharmacology for an opioid,” Michaelides said. “It is a potent and high-efficacy analgesic, but in certain contexts it resembles partial agonists, drugs that activate the receptor with low efficacy, which is what scientists think is needed for safety. Its capacity to be administered at therapeutic doses without producing respiratory depression is very important."

 

The teams’ findings challenge the prevailing view that high-efficacy mu-opioid receptor drugs are unsuitable for development as safe analgesics. In fact, the authors of the paper maintain that DFNZ should be explored for use in treatment for opioid use disorder and may be preferable to current opioid agonist medications, which have an associated risk of causing respiratory depression.

 

The research team will pursue additional preclinical studies to support an application for regulatory approval to conduct studies of DFNZ in humans. They believe several patient populations may benefit from DFNZ, including those in surgical settings and with cancer-related or chronic pain who have a particularly high need for effective pain treatment.

 

This research was supported in part by the NIH Intramural Research Program and by NIH/NIDA grant DA056354.

 

About the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): NIDA is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports most of the world’s research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. The Institute carries out a large variety of programs to inform policy, improve practice, and advance addiction science. For more information about NIDA and its programs, visit www.nida.nih.gov.
 

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®

 

Reference: Michaelides M., Rice K., Skiniotis G., et al. A μ opioid receptor superagonist analgesic with minimal adverse effects. Nature. 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10299-9.

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-026-10299-9 

Article Title

A μ opioid receptor superagonist analgesic with minimal adverse effects

Article Publication Date

1-Apr-2026

Myanmar: Examining The Discord Between The Arakan Army’s Words And Actions – Analysis

File photo of Arakan Army soldiers in Myanmar. Photo Credit: Arakan Army

March 29, 2026 
IPCS
By Fiona Raval

Recent reports document accusations against the Arakan Army (AA) of detaining, extorting, and abusing refugees returning to Maungdaw from Bangladesh. As Myanmar’s civil war continues unabated, instances of brutality and human rights violations against civilians have increasedexponentially, with the AA emerging as a particularly notorious entity.

As per the most recent estimates, the AA, an anti-junta ethnic armed organisation, controls around 90 per cent territory in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. It came into being in 2009 for Arakan self-determination through the ‘way of the Rakhita’ (Rakhine way of life) and is known for its commitment to a people-first approach, with an emphasis on inclusive governance.

The discord between the AA’s purpose and practice raises the question of whether the AA has sidelined its raison d’etre by perpetrating the same violence that necessitated its creation.
AA on Paper

The AA was established with the intention of liberating the people of Arakan from Burmese ‘colonialism’ and building a just, free, developed, and sovereign future for them. The AA proposes a confederate status within the larger state of Myanmar. It is part of a long-standing anti-state resistance in the Rakhine region, stemming from concerns about poverty, lack of development benefits, state repression, and political under-representation.


The AA has consistently presented itself in ‘oneness’ with the people and maintained that the protection of people is its prime consideration. It has been able to amass popular support by invoking cultural notions like ‘way of the Rakhita’ and involving all communities. It is through this support that people have not only signed up as recruits for the AA but also granted it legitimacy and success.

The AA, through its political wing, the United League of the Arakan (ULA), has been able to establish administrative systems, an independent police force, a tax regime, and a judicial set-up within Rakhine. In its foray as a parallel government, the AA has set up multiple committees and commissions, both to ensure better political representation from minority communities and to focus on targeted issues, like Humanitarian and Development Coordination Office (HDCO) for human rights matters.

In order to further its goal of administrative inclusion and in an effort to address the communally charged nature of the region, the AA eased many restrictions for the Rohingya Muslims. They were allowed to move from one town to another as long as they had a permit and were given some freedom to seek occupation. The Rohingya have been allowed to form a ‘Muslim Affairs Association’, granting them some autonomy in managing minor, intra-community affairs. The AA Commander-in-Chief also articulated that all ethnic people living in Arakan are “citizens” of Arakan, and gunned for their dignity and protection without any discrimination. Post such leadership proclamations, some Rohingya individuals claim a dial-down in racism and reduced discrimination while accessing public facilities like healthcare centres.

AA in Practice

Despite its professed policies based on the inherent right of the Arakan people’s dignity and right to life, the AA has been carrying out major human rights violations in the region to maintain and expand control.

The AA has been committing civilians into forced labour. A Fortify Rights report indicates that civilians, usually ethnic minorities like Rohingya Muslims, Hindus, and Chakmas, among others, have been either arbitrarily detained to be used as forced labour or been forced into hard labour at gunpoint. Such labour is both military and non-military in nature and includes repairing roads, making and repairing trenches and barracks, transporting ammunition and rations, tending to cattle, farming, etc. Survivors have recounted that they were made to work in inhumane conditions, without access to food or water, for prolonged hours. They were reportedly subject to hefty fines, beatings, and physical torture as punishment for poor work or resisting work.

The AA introduced military conscription to bolster its forces in March 2025 and even banned travel of all conscription-aged individuals outside AA-controlled areas. In early February 2026, the AA forcibly conscripted 20 youth into military service while introducing a minimum quota of 25 recruits per village, including women. There are also reports of civilians being sent to the frontlines without any training to serve as human shields.

The AA has been detaining individuals on grounds (founded or unfounded) of having pro-junta allegiances. Not just the individuals in question but their families, including children and the elderly, have also been held in prolonged detention. Detained individuals have been subjected to vicious physical and mental torture. Another report highlights brutal killings and mutilations of individuals taken away for detention. The AA abducted and detained journalist Mu Dra in September 2025 for alleged investigative overreach but with no proof to support the grounds on which she has been detained. Mu Dra is yet to be released.

Despite its ‘progressive’ policy for the Rohingya, the community is the worst persecuted by the AA. The AA doesn’t acknowledge the Rohingya as native to the Arakan and refers to them as Muslim inhabitants of Rakhine. They continue to face livelihood restrictions by losing land for agriculture and areas for fishing. While they are allowed inter-village movement, the required permits are often denied and are hard to access. There is a disproportionately high number of Rohingya among victims of arrests, detention, and killings. The AA has also been accused of contributing to the ‘second genocide’ of Rohingya people by using scorched earth tactics like burning villages, forcing displacement, and orchestrating mass-killings.


Most infamously, the AA has been accused of the brutal killings of over 150 individuals, mostly Rohingya, by drone strikes while they were attempting to flee through the Naf River in August 2024. While the AA has denied responsibility, in the subsequent months, they did close off access to the same route on the grounds that militant groups were using it for escape. The Rohingya also get caught in the brutal crosshairs of the increasingly violent rivalry between the AA and some Rohingya representative organisations like the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation.

The AA has also reportedly ‘nationalised’ properties belonging to individuals who were accused of supporting the junta or having anti-AA loyalties. Among other things, the AA has been involved in drug trafficking and opium production in order to obtain arms and fund recruitment drives.
Conclusion

The AA has routinely and vociferously denied all allegations of excessive use of power against civilians. However ground-reports and survivors’ testimonies point to the opposite. While the AA has been a formidable military force since its inception and an important contestor of political power, their antagonisations were traditionally targeted only at the power centre in Naypyidaw. The crux of their policy is to strengthen popular support and represent the people. Their contradictory on-ground practices therefore appear particularly hypocritical. These violations dilute the AA’s core distinguishing factor by eroding public trust. Public legitimacy is foundational to the organisation’s success—disregarding this is poor strategy.

About the author: Fiona Raval is Researcher with IPCS’ Southeast Asia Research Programme (SEARP).

Source: This article was published by IPCS

IPCS (Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies) conducts independent research on conventional and non-conventional security issues in the region and shares its findings with policy makers and the public. It provides a forum for discussion with the strategic community on strategic issues and strives to explore alternatives. Moreover, it works towards building capacity among young scholars for greater refinement of their analyses of South Asian security.

 

March research news from the Ecological Society of America

Ecological Society of America

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A study in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment uses data on shorebirds like these to demonstrate a new approach to understanding and protecting migratory birds amid habitat change.

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Credit: Tong Mu

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of five research articles recently published across its esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA’s journals consistently feature illuminating and impactful studies. This compilation of papers explores supply and demand along birds’ migration routes, scavenging by smaller carnivores, polar bear adaptation to a thawing Arctic, how different forestry approaches affect Europe’s birds and beaver impacts on tundra ecosystems.

From Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment:

Measuring the supply and demand of bird migration
Author contact: Tong Mu (tmu@princeton.edu)

Pinpointing where migrating birds most need help has long been difficult, because changes in their numbers at any one site can reflect not just local conditions but also shifting circumstances elsewhere along their journeys. To address this challenge, the authors of a new study introduce a simple but powerful metric grounded in two ideas they call “demand” (how intensely birds use a site) and “supply” (the site’s capacity to provide needed resources, such as food and shelter). By comparing bird demand with habitat supply, the metric can be used to assess and compare the relative conditions of stopover sites along migratory routes. Sites with high demand but low supply may represent potential bottlenecks — places heavily used by migrating birds yet limited in resources — while sites with ample supply but lighter use may be of lower conservation concern. Because this framework can be applied across entire migration routes, it can enhance management and conservation efficiency by helping prioritize sites to safeguard and shedding light on which factors may be limiting migratory bird populations throughout their ranges.

Read the article: A “demand and supply” approach to monitoring habitat and population changes of migratory birds

From Ecology:

Mid-size carnivores selective about scavenging
Author contact: Wesley Binder (wesley.binder@oregonstate.edu)

Research in the western U.S. suggests that scavenging by mid-sized carnivores differs depending on which large predator did the killing. Camera traps and GPS tracking of coyotes and red foxes in Yellowstone National Park showed that both so-called “mesocarnivores” took advantage of the scraps left over by wolves and cougars. Unexpectedly, however, the preferences of the two mesocarnivores differed markedly: foxes were frequently encountered at cougar kills but only rarely at wolf kills, while coyotes largely avoided cougar kills and stuck closer to wolves. Overlapping lifestyles may account for these associations to some degree, as wolves and coyotes are typically active during the day, whereas cougars and red foxes are most active after dusk. But cougars are also known to actively hunt coyotes for food, a behavior rarely displayed by wolves, which may explain why coyotes shy away from the big cats. Still, being kin is no guarantee of safety: wolves often attack coyotes lurking around kill sites because they perceive their smaller cousins to be rivals for limited resources. The research provides new insights into how the presence of large carnivores shapes the behavior of mesocarnivores, knowledge that may aid global management and conservation of carnivores of all sizes.

Read the article: Species-specific interactions with apex carnivores yield unique benefits and burdens for mesocarnivores

From Ecological Monographs:

Polar bears barely adapting to climate change
Author contact: L. Ruth Rivkin (ruth.rivkin@umanitoba.ca)

As polar bears struggle with multiple accelerating challenges in a rapidly warming Arctic, scientists have now pulled together the first comprehensive review of what we know about how the species is responding evolutionarily to these changes. Although genetic variation is essential for adapting to shifting environmental conditions, the review finds that this capacity is becoming more constrained in some — but not all — populations of polar bears. Shrinking sea ice is making it harder for bears to hunt and interact with each other, interfering with normal population mixing and, in some regions, leading to signs of significant inbreeding. Climate change, along with subsistence hunting and other human pressures, may also be causing bears to become smaller, a typical response to warmer conditions and more unpredictable food supplies. Despite these changes, however, scientists have detected little evidence of true physiological adaptation; instead, bears appear to be coping primarily by altering their behavior, such as hunting for new kinds of prey. By bringing together scattered genetic and ecological studies, the review highlights an urgent need to integrate these data streams to improve monitoring and protection of wide-ranging animals like polar bears, especially in regions of the world where climate change is already causing significant upheaval.

Read the article: Climate-linked evolution and genetics in a warming Arctic

From Ecological Applications:

Balancing timber and wildlife in Europe’s managed forests
Author contact: João Manuel Cordeiro Pereira (jmpereira94@hotmail.com)

Different approaches for balancing logging and biodiversity in European forests have varying — and sometimes contrasting — impacts on both birds and the insects they feed on, according to a recent study. Analysis of 1,394 bird surveys conducted across 135 forest plots in southern Germany showed that management practices that create more natural forest conditions, namely variable retention (leaving some living and dead trees and downed logs during harvest) and close-to-nature forestry (replacing uniform evergreen monocultures with uneven-aged stands of a variety of trees) often supported higher abundances of certain bird species, particularly those that nest in cavities or rely on diverse forest structure. Yet the direction of these responses varied widely among birds, underscoring that no single management strategy benefits all birds and that a mosaic of differently structured forests is likely needed. Invertebrates like insects and spiders also responded to these forestry practices, but bird numbers did not simply track the amount of their prey; rather, birds and invertebrates tended to respond in parallel to features such as higher shares of broadleaf trees or richer understories. Overall, the results point to the importance of moving beyond evergreen-dominated monocultures to support birds and their prey in Europe’s managed forests.

Read the article: Disentangling the effects of multifunctional forestry practices on the abundances of birds and their invertebrate prey

From Ecosphere:

Eager beavers busy moving north
Author contact: Georgia M. Hole (georgia.m.hole@durham.ac.uk)

Integrating physical evidence with remote-sensing techniques has enabled researchers to map the expansion of beavers into the Canadian Arctic, shedding additional light on the myriad ways they are transforming polar ecosystems. Natural clues — felled trees, browsed vegetation and altered waterways — left behind by the industrious engineers indicate that beavers have continuously occupied the study region bordering the Arctic Ocean since around 2008. In turn, the use of satellite imagery reveals some of the ways in which beavers are altering northern landscapes, such as rapid formation of ponds upstream from dams, creation of extensive wetland systems and rerouting of waterways. The results underscore the usefulness of linking different lines of evidence for determining beaver movement into Arctic regions and for anticipating their impacts on fragile tundra environments.

Read the article: Dendrochronology and remote sensing reveal beaver occupancy and colonization dynamics in an expanding Arctic population

 

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